


angel with a shotgun

by beckawrites



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckawrites/pseuds/beckawrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>they say before you start a war</em>
  <br/>
  <em>you better know what you're fighting for</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	angel with a shotgun

x.

he had always considered himself one of the good guys. he did the right thing, protected the people he loved, and stood up for his beliefs. how much more good could it get?

until he was sent to the ground, where the lines between good and bad blurred into nonexistence and suddenly, nothing was about black or white, it was about staying alive, and he didn’t care so much about being the good guy anymore. all he cared about was that he survived; that his sister survived; that his people survived.

(maybe he did care about being the good guy. maybe he cared too much.)

x.

she grew up with a pretty clear definition of good and bad. the boy next door: good. her mother: bad.

people who gave for the happiness and well-being of others, and did not expect anything in return, were saints.

people that did things that hurt other people, consciously aware that they were hurting other people, were monsters.

(so then what was she, letting her young love take the fall for her her spacewalk?)

x.

calling himself a hero would be too much of a stretch. heroes didn’t shoot kings, heroes didn’t leave girls stuck in pods with blood on their foreheads just to throw their radios into the river.

 _especially_ not beautiful girls. beautiful girls who looked like they could be princesses - better than the one he landed with - in all those story books he read for himself, to his sister, to keep himself from going insane after his mother was floated.

he wasn’t a knight, he wasn’t a hero. he was a warrior, a soldier, and all he needed to do was survive. if that meant leaving a girl alone, like the prince would never do, then so be it.

x.

not once would she have ever considered herself a damsel in distress. she fought and yelled and kicked and screamed to get herself where she needed, _wanted_ , to be. she slayed her own dragons, fought her own demons, and never once bothered to hide her battle scars.

she sometimes wondered if that made her a monster, too. especially now, especially on the ground, where everything was about kill or be killed. she wasn’t certain it had to be that way, but she was thrown into this fight right in the middle, and she always loved a good explosion.

x.

feeling her heart blow up in her chest when she found out that the boy she loved was in love with someone else was not the kind of boom she wanted.

x.

when she came to him, he didn’t _want_ to talk her down. he had wanted her from the minute he saw her, and here she was, standing in front of him and _demanding_ him. how was he supposed to say no?

easy: he didn’t.

and fuck him if it wan’t the greatest thing he ever did in his life.

x.

she did.

x.

this war started off as a means of keeping herself safe and alive. she trusted no one, needed no one, and relied on her own mind to do what she needed to do to ensure victory for the shooters.

(for _her_ shooter, but she wasn’t allowed to think that, because here on the ground people were so free, so at risk, that being close to anyone was a danger in itself.)

now it was about her people. it was about helping someone she trusted when she couldn’t even trust her own heart. she didn’t come to the ground to be a soldier, and she wasn’t. she was a mechanic, through and through.

it just so happened that now she was building weapons of destruction. whether or not the word ‘mass’ was tacked in front of it, well. that wasn’t anyone’s business.

x.

he knows before the guns are even in his hands what he’s going out and fighting for. he’s fighting for everyone’s safety, he’s fighting for his little sister, he’s fighting for _her_. to keep her safe and alive and well, because even though he says he doesn’t care, he does.

and he knows that she knows it, too.

x.

war is not about good and evil; it is not about angels and demons, or heaven and hell. it is about survival. living to fight another day, going to sleep with a knife under your pillow and a gun by your bed, waking up and repeating the cycle.

she does all of those things, and wins.

x.

the war of the outside world is the easy part.

the two of them spend too long waging wars with their insides about soft, big hands and quick glances and warmth craved at the witching hour but never sought out.

x.

the heart and head stage the bloodiest battles.

x.

it isn’t until a combustion occurs in them, of their self-restraint or of their desire or of their unsaid words no one can ever tell, that the battle is over and the war is won.

she always said she liked a good explosion.

x.

and when he fell to his knees in front of her in their dark tent, by god, did she explode. 


End file.
